Elizabeth McGovern of ‘Downton Abbey’ Plays a Bad Mom This Time

On a rainy morning, Elizabeth McGovern, late of “Downton Abbey,” arrived at a Midtown rehearsal space dressed in a pink cardigan, white capri pants and slip-on shoes that would appall a dowager countess. A film and stage actress who ditched Hollywood for London more than two decades ago, she found midcareer fame playing Cora Crawley, the American wife of an English lord and a woman who can really wear a tiara.

Rumors of a “Downton Abbey” film continue to swirl. In the meantime most actresses would feel relieved to have shucked off that Edwardian finery. Not Ms. McGovern. Having recently wrapped a new Julian Fellowes project, an adaptation of “The Chaperone,” she’s back to starring as an Edwardian matriarch. She plays Mrs. Conway in “Time and the Conways,” the 1937 J. B. Priestley drama that begins performances at the American Airlines Theater on Sept. 14. “I’m still wearing the same dress,” she joked.

With a small smile and an accent stranded between London and her native Illinois, Ms. McGovern, 56, discussed bad parenting and the thrill of being back on Broadway. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

What can you tell me about Mrs. Conway?

I’m just so blatantly loving being this woman. She’s not somebody who is very emotionally intelligent or developed or mature. She’s not really grown up herself, so she’s an absolutely terrible mother. And you see the damage that she wreaks on her children, all done in the most unconscious fashion, never meaning to tear them down, to break them apart.

So the opposite of Cora?

Who was the perfect mother always? Yes.

Would she and Cora get along?

Yes, because Mrs. Conway is fun. I think they would have a blast. They both enjoy a party.

Has the play made you think about your own experience as a mother?

I’m kind of shocked at how easily I’m understanding this character. The need to be attractive, the need to be the center of attention, the need to be the star, despite the fact that you’re supposed to be passing all that onto your children, I can definitely relate. I’m sure my children would agree.

Being a mother for a lot of women is such a huge part of their estimation of themselves, and yet nobody teaches you how to do it. It’s just something that happens to you, and then you’re supposed to just get on with it and do the best you can. Seeing somebody try her hardest and just get it wrong, I‘m really interested in that.

It’s been more than 20 years since you’ve done a play in New York. Is it good to be back?

I am loving it. I’m really in a state of constant buzz. I’m surprised by how much energy is generated by theater in New York right now. Really, there’s a hunger for it that I don’t remember. I can only surmise that as screens have gotten smaller and people walk around watching every TV show, every movie on their iPhones, we really need that human face-to-face contact — the real body, the real voice.

Theater aside, is this a strange time to be back in America?

It’s very, very disconcerting, but I comfort myself with the thought that we’ve been through the dark times before and got through them. And the message of “The Conways” is that life is about darkness and light, hope and despair. What you walk away with is: This too shall pass. That’s my takeaway.

After all this time away do you still feel American?

When I’m in England, I feel like I have hay coming out of my ears all the time. I will always be the American, no matter what. But when I come here I feel quite British. Always the foreigner, I guess.

Does that mean that it’s still a trick to do an English accent?

I wish I could say that it’s not, but even though I have played many English parts, there’s still something about the musculature of it, the placement of muscles. I do have to think about it, unfortunately.

Early in your career, you played a lot of girlfriends. Now you’re playing a lot of mothers. Do you mind?

What can you do? I had reconciled myself to it, to feeling very grateful for the profession and the amount of success I’ve enjoyed, but also quite unchallenged and bored. Not that I wanted to complain. I was happy enough to make a living. Last year, I thought, I’m just one of those people who is always going to be the wife, the mother, the girlfriend. And then suddenly, this year, without even kind of really expecting it, I find myself doing work that I’m really, really loving. Go figure.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section AR, Page 20 of the New York edition with the headline: Elizabeth McGovern Plays a Bad Mom This Time. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe